Everybody wants to be like Tom Brady, and who can blame them?
I don’t think I’m overstating things when I say he’s the most beautiful and talented person on Earth. And now he’s a 3-point favorite to win the Super Bowl and become even more beautiful, if that’s possible.
There’s only one problem with the envy of New England’s quarterback.
To be like Tom Brady you have to eat like Tom Brady. That means giving up the basic necessities of life.
You know, stuff like food.
It’s not that Brady doesn’t eat. It’s that he’d rather vacation with Roger Goodell than touch a cheeseburger, bagel, pizza, Frosted Flakes, Coke or beer.
So if you really want to be an All-Pro quarterback into your 40s, you have to ask whether it’s worth the sacrifice.
One way to find out is to take the Tom Challenge. For the next couple of weeks leading up to Super Bowl LI, try the Brady Diet.
Let me warn you, it won’t be easy. For one thing, you probably don’t have a personal chef to prepare meals or a supermodel wife to serve them.
For another, the average NFL fan prefers the Chris Christie Diet. An altruistic soul like Brady wants to help, so he produced the TB12 Nutritional Manual. His website describes it as a “living document about our core TB12 nutritional philosophies.”
One philosophy I have is a refusal to pay $200 for a cookbook, living or not. So I can’t really tell you about the 90 or so recipes.
Fortunately, Brady’s chef shared some of the basics with the Boston Globe.
Just reading Allen Campbell’s menu options made me want to run to Five Guys, but you judge for yourself.
“My philosophy is that a plant-based diet has the power to reverse and prevent disease,” Campbell said.
Sounds good so far. Then he got into specifics.
The Brady Diet is 80 percent vegetables and whole grains. All organic, of course.
The rest is lean meats, like chicken, wild salmon, grass-fed organic steak and the occasional duck.
No white sugar or white flour. No salt unless it’s Himalayan pink salt. And no “nightshades.”
I didn’t know a nightshade from a lampshade, but it basically means no potatoes, tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers. No wonder Papa John’s went with Peyton Manning.
And forget an apple a day keeping the pass rush away. Brady doesn’t eat fruit.
He says he’s never even tasted a strawberry. He runs from caffeine, coffee and dairy products.
So what’s that leave?
Campbell described a typical meal in the Brady house. It’s a quinoa dish with wilted greens, with garlic toasted in coconut oil.
“I use kale or Swiss chard or beet greens,” Campbell said.
Somewhere, Ken Stabler weeps.
When Brady’s eating regimen came out, it caused a bit of backlash in the nutrition community. Experts said any diet low in sugar and high in vegetables and lean protein is good.
But some said Brady’s aversion to fruit and nightshades is wacky. One expert wrote how “tomatoes are the richest source of lycopene, a powerful antioxidant,” and pointed to a study published in “Molecular Nutrition & Food Research.”
You probably missed that study and are bit confused. All I know is Brady must be doing something right.
At age 39, he continued his MVP-caliber year with 384 yards passing and three TDs in Sunday’s blowout of Pittsburgh.
It looks as if he has another six or seven Super Bowls in him. Then there’s that whole Giselle thing.
So give the Brady Diet a test run. Maybe you can be like Brady, a guy who has everything a person could ever want.
Except a cheeseburger.

So if you really want to be an All-Pro quarterback into your 40s, you have to ask whether it’s worth the sacrifice